Loosening a concept’s definition buys more cases at the cost of meaning

Evidence

Sartori’s major contribution to the literature on concepts is perhaps his idea of the ladder of generality. He was concerned with how the extension (i.e., empirical coverage) of a concept varied with its intension (i.e., the concept itself). Loosening the concept results in “conceptual stretching” whereby a concept would become applicable to more cases, but would be potentially stretched beyond recognition. In my terms, Sartori was thinking about what happens when one adds or subtracts secondary-level dimensions, and the impact of that on the empirical coverage of the concept. Often this addition or subtraction is done via adjectives; as a result I will talk about “concepts +/− adjectives” as a shorthand for what happens when one changes intension by changing the number of secondary-level dimensions, and the downstream consequences of this on the number of observations in the category (i.e., extension). — Gary Goertz, Social Science Concepts, 470

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the intension/extension trade-off and ‘conceptual stretching’ — the core machinery of the ladder of generality.
• XREF: Connects to Sartori’s ‘Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics’ and to any prior chapter of this book treating secondary-level dimensions.